The Demographics of Exoplanets with Gravitational Microlensing

Speaker: Scott Gaudi (Ohio State University)

Scott Gaudi will review the landscape of microlensing searches for exoplanets, beginning with an outline of the method itself, and continuing with a review of the results that have been obtained to date. Eleven planets have been detected with microlensing; he will discuss what these detections have taught us about the frequency of cold terrestrial planets, giant planets, and solar system analogs. He then will speculate on the expected returns of next-generation microlensing experiments both from the ground and from space. When combined with the results from other complementary surveys such as Kepler, next generation microlensing surveys will yield a complete picture of the demographics of planetary systems throughout the Galaxy.